


Kaleidoscope

by NanakiBH



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Altered States, Anal Sex, Banter, Drug Use, Kissing, M/M, Riding, Spoilers, post-MGSV, reverse cowboy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 04:18:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4814696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NanakiBH/pseuds/NanakiBH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything is temporary except Adam's loyalty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kaleidoscope

**Author's Note:**

> This took me a while.
> 
> I really enjoyed the new light that MGSV cast on the relationship between Ocelot and Big Boss. Ocelot's characterization was especially impressive to me. We knew what a sadist he was, but I love how responsible MGSV made him seem in regards to his interrogation methods. It made me really want to write about that older, more responsible Ocelot.
> 
> ...Anyway, I'm totally assuming that they could've met again sometime after the end, yet before MG1&2, so that's where this takes place. I refuse to believe that Ocelot wouldn't have seen him again for _that many years._

He climbed the stairs to the fifth floor, stopped outside the room at the end of the hallway there, and used his key to let himself in. With the door secured behind him, he searched blindly along the wall at his side with one hand, looking for the light switch he knew he'd find there. A click, and the overhead light revealed the living room in front of him. Before he took a single step forward, he stopped with a start, one of his hands flying instinctively to the gun he had concealed beneath his belt and raised it at the ready.

He had himself an unexpected visitor, but his finger faltered at the trigger, unable to fire.

“Jesus Christ, Adam,” he muttered around a heavy breath, sliding the gun back under his belt. “Were you trying to give me a heart attack?”

Crossing one leg casually over the other, Adam leaned back on his couch, giving him an amused grin.

Their last communication had been at least a week ago. He thought that he was still occupied, upholding his end of their plan, but perhaps he'd spent that week of radio silence sniffing out his location.

“You look good, John,” he said. It didn't matter what words came out of his mouth. He was just pleased with himself.

He shook his head and approached him slowly, stopping at the other side of the coffee table that divided them. “You could've at least turned on the lights. What normal person sits in the dark like that?” The bastard's grin just intensified. There was no doubt that he wanted to see him jump. He'd gotten his fun, so John continued, trying to act heedless. “How'd you find me here, anyway?”

“Oh, John,” he sung, wagging a finger at him. “I'm a spy.”

“You're terrifying.” He laughed, but he honestly meant it. The only reassurance was knowing that Adam was always on his side, attempts to give him a heart attack aside. “The older you get, the scarier you get, I swear. The more dangerous you become, the more alluring you seem, though... And that's the appeal of a wildcat, isn't it?”

For the briefest second, Adam seemed surprised that he'd say as much, but the grin returned as though it never left, and he leaned back. Resting his arms over the back of the couch, he uncrossed his legs only to kick up his other heel, crossing them the opposite way.

“Fallen for me?” he asked, tipping his chin toward his chest, looking up at him from beneath his lashes.

Relinquishing a relenting sigh, John rounded the table and came to stand near him. When he stood that close, Adam looked like an animal on alert; cautiously waiting, unsure of what to expect and unused to being looked at with such a fondly scrutinizing gaze. John reached out, and he expected him to flinch away, but he didn't move a muscle. He touched his cheek, and Adam's whole expression softened. As he stroked his thumb just below one narrow eye, John thought he looked exhausted.

Ignoring the question, he dropped his hand and sat down beside him on the couch. “That was quite the charade you were pulling. It would've been a tough act for anyone to keep up – even for you. Are you doing alright? How's your memory? Two plus two?”

“Still five,” Adam said, looking away. John followed his eyes to the hand he had resting between them. “As you'd expect, I'm a bit tired – not just from the trip here. I probably still need some time to decompress before I'm back to my old self. There are some things that still need to fall back into place. Coming here, I thought... Well. You know. I thought that seeing you with my own eyes would help the pieces in my head realign.”

That wasn't a problem. He had expected as much, knowing that it would take more than a few days to unravel the kind of mental webs he needed to weave around his brain to plant a new reality on top of his existing one. There had been two Big Bosses, and then, to Adam, there was only one. Despite having communicated with him via radio on multiple occasions over the past few weeks, Adam shared little of what he thought of the phantom as a person.

He was meant to become a perfect double, so if Adam had succeeded and turned him into his perfect, indistinguishable copy, then...

He hadn't noticed that Adam had been staring at him until he spoke and shot through his thoughts.

“You're wondering about him, aren't you? You think I had an interest in him.”

Was he wrong?

John didn't feel like confirming his accusation, so he just lifted a brow and sunk a shoulder into the cushy back of the couch.

“That's alright,” Adam said, uncrossing his legs, placing his feet flat on the carpeted floor. “You know how I am, so I'm not surprised that you'd question what I was up to while I was out of your sight. I'll admit... There were times when I looked at him and felt something seize my heart, but there's nothing for you to worry about. He has no interest in me.”

“None?” That was a surprise. “I thought you were the one who handled his conditioning. You didn't tell him about us?”

“I made sure that he knew only what was necessary. I did what I had to do to keep myself from becoming compromised. What would I have done if I snapped out of it and realized that I'd gone and gotten myself attached to the one who isn't you? What a horrifying thought. Would've been even worse if I unknowingly seduced him and he fell for me.”

Adam shook his head, shuddering at the mere idea of it.

Watching his face carefully, John moved an inch nearer, bringing his face closer to Adam's. “So you really forgot?”

Amused smile returning, Adam turned to face him head-on and placed his arms over his shoulders. It wasn't anything like an embrace. He was holding him still, pinning him like prey. “I forgot, but I didn't forget. I guess it must be too difficult for you to wrap your head around if you haven't experienced what it's like for yourself. Now–” His sentence ended abruptly and his thoughts hung in the air for a moment as he reconsidered his words. “No. Now, two and two is four.” He grumbled a little. “Or... Maybe four point five. I'm almost there... What matters is that I can tell which reality is the real one now.”

Adam was just trying to play with him, but he was right. It wasn't easy for him to understand what his experience on the new Mother Base must have been like. When he left on that bike, he rode off into his own new sort of reality, assuming a new identity for himself, but it was nothing like what Adam must have been putting himself through.

“ _Hmm?_ What's that look about?” Adam asked, mischief curling the corners of his mouth. “Were you jealous? You were jealous, weren't you?”

His double could have his legend. He could have everything, for all he cared. As far as he was concerned, he was already dead – died a long time ago in that flower field when his finger pulled the trigger on the person who'd built his life. But as long as he still drew breath, there was one thing that he would never let go of; something he intended to drag with him to the grave.

He moved faster than Adam could react, but he had the feeling that he wouldn't have tried to escape his grasp even if he'd seen his chance. Fingers of one hand twined around the hair at the back of Adam's head, pulling tight, and he tugged him nearer to close the inch of space they'd been teasing for the last minute, sealing their mouths together. Almost instantly, Adam dropped the act and leaned in, parting his lips to allow his tongue in. His mouth had a mysteriously unremarkable taste, just like the man himself; enigmatic. Adam's eyes were closed, surrendering completely, but John kept his eye open and watched him, unable to look away as he thought about how much he reminded him of the boy he first met. Time had tenderized Ocelot's heart, peeled back the pride he'd shielded himself with, but what was found beneath was something John had always been able to see.

Adam was right. No amount of brainwashing could change him. His loyalty was perfect.

Slowly, Adam parted from him, trailing the tips of his fingers along the edge of his jaw, his touch warm even through his gloves. With dizzy eyes, he glanced up at him. “You've really got to stop avoiding my questions.”

It was John's turn to grin. “Why should I? They were all rhetorical, weren't they?”

Just as he hoped, Adam's face turned as red as his scarf. Looking positively scandalized and floundering to find something to respond with, he eventually huffed just like John expected and turned away.

“Anyway,” he muttered, his back still turned. He grabbed for something on his end of the couch and turned back around with an ordinary-looking sack that he placed in his lap. “I brought back some things from my time at Mother Base – 'souvenirs' from Afghanistan and Africa, if you will. I worked my ass to the bone and risked my own mental stability for our plan, so hell if I wasn't going to secure some compensation for my effort.” Glancing at him, making sure that he was looking, he tugged on the sack's string closure to loosen it and put a hand inside.

“This sounds promising.”

“First, there's this,” Adam said. He pulled something out of the bag and placed it on the table in front of them.

John stared at it. “It's another bag.” A smaller bag, but... still a bag.

Adam gave him an exasperated look. “Yeah, obviously. Open it.”

Hard to say which one of them was the smart ass. As he thought about how nice it was to have the company of the snarky cat bastard back, he reached out and lifted the small, velvet pouch from the table. It was a little heavy. Without opening it, he could tell that its contents were loose inside. He pinched the end of the string that tied it together at the top and tugged to open it. He peeked inside and was greeted by hundreds of shimmering sparkles.

“These are...!” At a loss of words, he upended the the pouch over the table, and countless tiny, glittering shards spilled out over its surface. Adam had told him that they were easily able to fund their expansions of Mother Base with the materials they found in the field, but he found it hard to believe that someone back at base wouldn't be missing the cut he'd taken for himself. “How did you sneak away with this many rough diamonds? Won't someone on Mother Base notice?”

He gave him an easy shake of his head. “Don't start underestimating me now, John.”

If he thought it were fine, then it was probably fine. Adam wouldn't have done anything reckless that would've exposed him. At the worst, if they figured out that he was the one who took this fistful of diamonds, they'd be wondering what Ocelot intended to do with that much raw dough. In reality, though, he had no reason. John could tell just by looking at his face. He took them just because he could, swiping them out from under their noses without a single alarm being raised.

Like a dead bird left on the doorstep, this was a gift to him; a show of loyalty and gratitude.

“Do whatever you want with them. I know you have some things you could probably use them on, but you could pack them back up and use them as an expensive paperweight for all I care,” Adam said, shrugging. He put his hand back into the bag and pulled out another one of his souvenirs: a short, cylindrical canister. “Now this... _This_ is something I'd like for us to share.”

It was held out for him, and John took it from him. The second he twisted off the tight lid, his nose was met with a powerful and unique aroma. It was cloyingly sweet-smelling and somewhat flowery, but he didn't recognize the clay-colored substance inside the tin. He was about to dip a finger into it to give it a taste before Adam quickly grabbed his wrist and yanked his hand away to stop him.

“You probably don't want to do that,” he advised.

It wasn't his fault that he wanted to stick anything that smelled like food (and sometimes didn't smell like food) into his mouth. When he looked at the hand holding his wrist, Adam stared back. For a second there, he thought that he would pull away and act all indignant again, but he looked like he was enjoying the contact too much to let him go. It was only after the moment held on for a few seconds too long that he finally let go.

“Decompressing?” John asked, pleased by the way he made Adam pout.

“I'm– ...Yeah.” He wasn't going to admit it, but John could see it as clear as day. That look on his face... It was like he was falling in love all over again as he rediscovered the person he'd forgotten. For his own part, John wasn't doing anything special, but there was something special to be found in that.

He handed back the tin and Adam carefully took it from him and placed it on the table, swiping some diamonds aside to clear a spot for it. Without explanation, he reached into the canvas bag once more and procured a peculiar object. At first, John didn't know what it was he was looking at and wasn't sure what sort of reaction Adam was expecting from him until he took in the object for its individual parts.

“Don't tell me, that's... That canister is-”

Adam smiled that clever feline smile of his. “Sounds like you've got it this time. Indeed, it's filled with the purest opium you'll ever encounter in your life. As you're probably aware, it's been out of fashion for quite some time, but that's not going to stop the good men in Afghanistan who consider this sweet drug their livelihood. Your shadow was kind enough to extract an entire crate of this stuff out of enemy hands. He even sent up this nifty lamp. Pretty nice, huh?”

'Pretty nice,' he said... Right. That was definitely the sort of thing Ocelot would get excited about. To be fair, though, his enthusiasm for it was infectious. John would've been content to kick back on the couch with a simple cigar and listen to him ramble about the rest of their adventures in Afghanistan and Africa, but as Adam's excitement grew, his own curiosity was beginning to build. He hadn't steered him wrong yet, and he knew that if there were anyone he could trust with an unfamiliar substance, it would be Ocelot.

“So you know how to use that thing?” he asked, nodding at the lamp and the pipe that was laid across its tray. Knowing that he had riddled his body with needles, exposing himself to every imaginable chemical to build immunities, he figured that he must have already had some experience with it.

To his surprise, Adam replied with a tenuous, “Sort of.” He reached over and patted John on the chest, finding and confiscating the lighter from his shirt's breast pocket. “I only know as much about it as I've heard from word of mouth. These days, because of its rarity, you can't even find that many people who smoke it. Those who _think_ they're smoking the real deal are most often filling their lungs with a cheap imitation, anyway. It's unfortunate that I don't know Chinese... I can only imagine the sort of stories I could hear about it...”

As he talked, John watched silently as Adam's hands worked. He said that he only 'sort of' knew what he was doing, but his efficiency said otherwise. Adam picked up the key-shaped instrument from the tray that the lamp was affixed to and used that to pack a pinch of the fragrant drug into the bowl of the pipe.

“That's all you're using?” he asked.

Adam's eyebrows shot upward. “Whoa, slow down there. This is probably going to be enough for both of us. From what I understand, this is some potent stuff. You never want to have a heavy hand with something you've never used before.”

Come to think of it, he hadn't agreed to try it yet. Adam was just assuming that he was willing. Jumping ahead like this, he must've been dying to try it. He hadn't spared a second before he started preparing it, acting like he hadn't been gone for ages, settling right back into the life he had beside him, blending right in like a fixture of his place. His malleability was impressive, but it made John feel concerned. For him.

With the sound of the lighter being struck, he brought his attention back to watch what Adam was doing, watched him light the lamp on the tray.

“Someone there probably made this thing by hand,” he said, remarking on the handmade quality of the lamp and its components. With the tray sitting flat on the table, he leaned close to it and held the end of the pipe over the lamp. “It's probably not the most elegantly-designed instrument you could find, but it's something. Wouldn't have wanted to resort to DIY'ing something from around the apartment.” His eyes flicked toward him. “Not that I couldn't have come up with something that worked just as well.”

Was he still trying to impress him? John tried to resist laughing. “I know. You're very resourceful.”

Oh, he looked so happy. One acknowledgment of his ability was all it took to make him look _that_ happy.

“Here, you might want to get this,” Adam said, bringing up the pipe for him.

“Me first?”

“You don't want the honors?”

There wasn't any time if they didn't want to let the smoke escape. Grabbing the hand that held the pipe, he brought the mouthpiece to his lips and inhaled. Adam hadn't really told him anything, but to hell with it at this point.

The smoke that filled his lungs was thick, its taste almost exactly like its smell; sweet and earthy. It certainly wasn't like anything he'd ever smoked before. Its quality was incomparable. He held it in for as long as possible, imagining the tendrils of smoke coiling in his lungs as the usual expansive feeling began to claw at him from the inside. By the time he let it go, he was already beginning to feel it. Unless he was just imagining it.

...He was still holding Adam's hand.

Adam laughed at him when he caught him staring. “We keep doing this, don't we?”

He was definitely feeling something.

Adam leaned in and stole the next hit. At least that would make them equal, hopefully. Adam's tolerance for everything was a lot higher, so for as far as he knew, he'd be the one laying on the couch counting imaginary stars on the ceiling while Adam would be sitting there watching him, fully lucid. That thought was a little troubling.

However, Adam's face was telling him a different story.

“Too strong?” John asked, unable to keep the smug satisfaction out of his voice as he watched Adam's face twist as he struggled to keep himself from coughing.

“No,” he said, choking, eyes watering. “It's good. It's real good. Tastes g- ...great.”

And then he proceeded to rip into a series of violent coughs that left him doubled over, his head between his knees. The whole reason he built tolerances was so that he wouldn't let anyone catch him in embarrassing situations like this, probably. John patted him on the back and took the pipe back from him, idly taking another hit as he waited for him to recover. Once Adam was done coughing, he sat up, his eyes wet, his nose running.

He looked pathetic like that. It made John want to mess him up.

That might've been the opium getting to his head for sure.

That second hit left his head feeling warm and full and a little dizzy. He held it out for Adam to try again, but Adam held up a hand and coughed again, silently admitting that he needed another minute before he was ready for another try.

By the third, he felt totally different. The pressure in his head was almost disorienting, pressing down behind his eye, spreading all over, yet the smoke's warmth and its and pleasant fragrance tempered its immediate effects. It wasn't like anything else he'd ever had, but he knew that he should expect the experience to change with each passing second. Just had to wait.

After he dried his eyes with the back of his sleeve, Adam took the pipe back from him and took another pull from it. His eyes watered more and his mouth wobbled unsteadily, but he kept his back straight and handled it with more grace this time. John found his eye unconsciously drawn to the way Adam held the pipe, his dizzy brain enjoying the aesthetically pleasing way it rested in his palm, the length cradled by his index finger. He had such thin wrists.

Stopping after his own third hit, Adam put the pipe back on the tray and leaned back into the couch. After holding his breath for a few thick seconds, he released it and sunk even deeper into the couch until he was practically laying down on it, his knees bumping the coffee table. His altered state might've been to blame, but John found his attention drifting to the exposed skin of his chest right beneath his scarf. His coat had been laying over the back of the couch since he arrived.

“Really made yourself comfortable,” he observed.

All he received in return was a distant mumble.

“Now look at you, getting even more comfortable. What am I supposed to do with you...?” He sighed, unsure why his thoughts were suddenly coming straight out of his mouth. “Adam, how'd we get like this? I can't remember.”

“Because of the coma?” he asked, inclining his head toward him.

John shook his head, noticing the way it made his head spin around; a none too ungraceful rattling of his brain. “Nah. Even before that. What happened? I can't remember how we got so close. You didn't plant some fake thoughts in my head while I was out, did you...?”

That couldn't have been the reason. Adam looked at him like he was offended that he would even think so.

“Wasn't it always there?” he said, teasing him with a smile that looked too genuine on those lying lips. “You know – ever since I did a barrel roll out of that WIG. That wasn't one of my finest moments, but I think I left an impression. You thought about me after that, didn't you?”

Yeah.

Yeah, he definitely did. Even if Adam hadn't been at the front of his thoughts, there were times when he stopped out of nowhere and wondered what became of the young major. Something pricked his chest back then and continued to widen with the years. They ran into each other occasionally, and each time, that little scratch he left kept growing until it became what it was now. That had to be what happened. He must not have noticed because he hadn't known that he should be looking in the first place. Before he knew it, the name that had been passed to him in confidence had been etched inside of him.

This time, all that left his mouth was a small 'huh' as the realization settled in alongside the fuzzy smoke in his brain.

“You always were kind of dense,” Adam said, finally scooting over, nudging his hip against John's. Even though he was that close, he kept his hands to himself, folded in his lap. The foolish confidence he used to have had evolved into this; the silent, smug knowledge that he could have whatever he wanted with the right suggestion. It was sneaky. John almost preferred a straightforward approach, but there wasn't anything forcing him to acquiesce, either.

And with the way he felt at the moment, head warm, his thoughts too heavy for his head, he felt like he needed someone to rest against.

He wrapped an arm around Adam's shoulders and pulled him closer so he could plant the side of his face against his shoulder.

“That shit really is good. I feel totally incapable of thinking about anything bad right now,” he told him. He heard Adam make a pleased sound and felt it through his chest. “How much is in that tin? If we keep using only as much as you used this time, I bet we could lay here like this for weeks.”

Adam made a sound of agreement. It seemed as though the opium were turning them into different people, making him more talkative, and Adam less so. Even if Adam were saying less, though, he looked content. If he stayed there like that and didn't move, John expected to hear him purring in a few minutes.

As the seconds passed, he felt himself slipping deeper into that haze, falling under the high's spell. “It's totally got me now. How about you? Can you feel it, or is your resistance training haunting you?”

“I'm fine. Maybe not as high as you are right now, though,” said the man who was now almost nuzzling his chest. “So, are you just going to sit on the couch all night or would you like to test out its effects on... other things? You haven't done anything in _ages_ , have you?”

Considering who was asking, there was only one thing he could be talking about. Snake was tired and the cat was still circling him. He hadn't done anything in ages, that much was true, but he also hadn't given it a lot of thought. Lately, the only thing that moved his body was battle. He'd found some respite in this American city for the moment, hiding himself in this inconspicuous apartment, going by an inconspicuous name, but that rest made him restless. The palms of his hands were red and quivered with a desire for more blood. Standing still just made him feel like he was prolonging the inevitable.

There was a strange sort of relief in knowing that Adam would wade through rivers of blood with him if that were where his future found him.

Sex wasn't important to him, but the person at his side...

As gloved fingers touched his chest, he reached up and held Adam's face in his hands, bringing him into another kiss. He intended to give it more heat than the first, but the warmth melting his brain dampened his sense of urgency. It was there, but it had been pressed to the back of his mind. All he could do was kiss him – kiss him and run his fingers through Adam's long hair and fall back as the weight on his side was laid against him more heavily. Adam was still watching him, his eyes open but just barely, narrowed into slits. John could feel his smirk against his lips.

“You tricked me,” John muttered, his mouth pressed against Adam's.

“Oh, hush. You could still fight me if you wanted. You aren't _that_ high, are you?”

He wasn't wrong. Maybe. If he wanted to, he could probably throw him off and tell him he didn't feel like it, but the high was speaking to a different part of his brain; a part of him that he wasn't normally in contact with. It was becoming startlingly more obvious to him that he enjoyed the feeling of Adam's weight on top of him. Adam's hands felt good. His lips, ghosting lightly along the shell of his ear, felt good, too.

Slowly, he closed his eye, the high making him feel too relaxed to hold himself up the way he usually would. Adam was free to step all over him while he was like this, and there wasn't an ounce of him that felt like putting up a fight to regain control.

It was fine. Right now, that was fine.

He lost himself in the feeling of Adam's lips lightly sucking and nibbling on his earlobe, his jaw, so focused on the sensations that he didn't even notice that Adam's deft fingers had already undone the front of his shirt until he opened his eye.

Adam kissed him on the eyepatch.

“Let's take this somewhere more comfortable.”

Taking him by the hands, Adam got up and pulled him up along with him.

Looking up at Adam's face, an unusual, somewhat painful sense of nostalgia came over him. He'd missed nearly a decade of life. He knew that, logically, but it made him feel like he'd jumped through time, and now here he was, with an Ocelot who was a lot more mature, a lot more cunning, and... Kinder, maybe. His feet continued to move forward, but his memories were still trapped in that helicopter, and his brain couldn't compute the gap between then and now.

They were the same age now, weren't they?

“What's that smile for?” Adam asked, turning a curious face toward him when they reached the door of his bedroom.

John dismissed it with a light shake of his head. “Nothing. I just had a thought.”

He looked suspicious, but he let it drop and opened the door for them, allowing John inside first. Not in any sort of fighting mood, John got on the bed and leaned over the side to turn on the lamp. That would be enough. For a second that felt like it could've been full minutes, his fingers lingered on the light switch, and he marveled at the way it felt between his fingers. He was distracted by the way the light lengthened the shadows around his room.

Only three hits had been enough to make him that high. At least he still had the presence of mind to realize that he was high and not just imagining things, but on the other hand, Adam was barely fazed.

Taking his wrist, Adam moved his arm down to his side like a doll and crawled onto the bed with him, sitting at his side. John could see it in his face that he was experiencing the effects too, but it was a totally different kind of euphoria. The man who'd once accidentally shot out his eye was now tenderly caressing the side of his face, and he should've been disturbed by that, but all he could focus on was the warm stinging in his chest as he looked at him.

He raked his gaze over Adam's body, lingering a little while longer on his chest this time, then lower and realized something. “You aren't carrying your guns.”

“Who says I'm not?” he said, magically procuring one from behind him. John should've suspected as much since he kept his own in the same place. Covered by his shirt, no one even knew it was there unless they were actively checking. “The other's in my coat,” he said, placing the revolver on the bedside table. Sliding a hand underneath John, he smoothly slipped his gun out from beneath his belt and placed it next to his own. The light of the lamp made them glitter in a way that John's current state of mind wanted to call 'beautiful'.

Turning his eyes back to John, Adam unbuttoned the sleeves of his shirt and rolled them up to his elbows. He stood for only long enough to remove his boots and socks, then got back down onto the bed and moved over him, placing his gloved hands on his chest, spreading open his shirt. He paused to admire him, and John wondered if he were experiencing that oddly captivating feeling that made it impossible to look away from something once his brain had deemed it interesting.

Nah. That was just Ocelot. Adam had always been that way about him. More than nine years and he was still the same...

“Adam...” Without commanding his body, one of his arms reached out for him and Adam moved into his touch, letting him hold the back of his head to bring him in for another kiss. He wasn't even usually the kissing type, but his lips felt lonely.

Adam pulled away sooner than he would've liked, though he couldn't say anymore how long they had been kissing. It could've been as quick as a second, but he wanted more. His tongue wanted to find out what he tasted like now.

“You know,” Adam began, tracing a finger from John's lower lip to his throat, to his chest, down his stomach. “I'd be happy just to stay beside you, but I'd be lying if I said that I hadn't been waiting for this.”

“At least you're being honest.”

His belt was unfastened and pulled loose from its loops, then dropped somewhere on the floor. Before moving any further, he removed the scarf from around his own neck, and John swallowed hard at the sight of his exposed throat.

“You look hungry enough to eat me. I'd be shivering in my boots if they were still on my feet.”

“Come here,” John said, not even waiting for him to comply as he hooked his fingers in Adam's belt loops and pulled him toward him. Adam got tripped up by the sheets and fell on top of him. John could feel the warmth of his chest bleeding through his skin, and he felt like he could detect each unique, individual scent on him; dust, gun smoke, the sweet scent of opium on his breath. He wanted to devour him, make him the part of him that Adam wanted to be.

He placed his mouth over Adam's throat and ran his tongue greedily over his skin, closing his lips over the tender flesh to seek out his taste. His ears were met with a startled sound that was just as quickly hushed. Hoping to hear that sound again, he sunk his teeth lightly into his throat and scraped at it, clawed, biting to draw the sound of surrender from Adam's throat, to make blood rise to the surface of his skin and color him with red marks that would be hidden away behind his red scarf.

Adam's fingers grasped weakly in his hair, tugging on the strings that held his eyepatch. John could feel his heartbeat against his own chest. It had to be the high that made him feel as though their pulses matched, imagining the thump against his chest as the same one he heard in his head.

After unbuttoning his own shirt the rest of the way, Adam paused before considering his pants. “Please tell me you have some sort of lubricant around here. I'm not gonna be happy if I have to walk out of here with a limp.”

John blearily waved a hand at the same table their guns were resting on, and Adam got off for a moment to search through his things. He let out a triumphant sound when he found what he was looking for and returned with it in hand.

John was about to get up and swap their positions before Adam placed a hand firmly against his chest and thrust him back down onto the bed. “Now, now, John” he said, rubbing that hand over him, teasing one of his nipples with the smooth, gloved pads of his fingers. “Allow me. I'm not that irresponsible kid you met back then. You could say that I have... _experience_ now.”

Removing his gloves and setting them aside with the item he'd secured, Adam put his legs over the side and shrugged himself out of his pants. It wasn't the most graceful maneuver, but it would've been difficult to make it look graceful unless he wanted to take his time with it, and neither of them had the patience for that when every second already felt like a century. In spite of Adam's insistence from a moment ago, John started working on his own clothes, unfastening his pants, working them down his hips. He left his underwear on only as a fuzzy afterthought, realizing that Adam might still want to have his fun with that.

His cock was already half-hard. He wasn't sure how he got to that point already, but his tongue still remembered the taste of Adam's skin. Adam had stripped himself of everything but his open shirt, and, after one glance at his body, John had to begrudgingly admit to himself that he found him really attractive as his cock hardened further. He'd always been attractive in a boyish sort of way, but time had cut him into a real beauty of a man. As Adam himself would've been the first to say, he was just a spy, but he wasn't just _any_ spy with a body like that. He was clearly doing something to maintain such a muscled physique. There was a lot more on his resume.

As Adam's eyes slowly scanned his body, John expected him to touch him, but he still kept his hands to himself. There was a plan he had in mind, John was sure.

Retrieving the tube of lubricant from where it lay next to them, Adam swung a leg over both of his and straddled him. With the tube in hand, he looked down at him, keeping both of his eyes locked with John's one as he uncapped the lid. His head too foggy and dumb to think farther than what he saw right in front of him, John didn't even realize what it was Adam was doing until he had a hand behind himself, two fingers slicked with lube sliding inside.

“Don't need any help?” he asked, suddenly wishing he could help, even though his body felt too lax and satisfied with remaining prone.

“I've got it under control,” he said, his breath hitching slightly, one eye squeezing shut as he moved his fingers inside of himself. It didn't look like it felt too good, but his cock was also hard. It twitched occasionally as he gradually loosened himself. “I remember what it was like to get split open by that monster dick of yours. Next time... Yeah, next time, I think I might have to show you what that's like – return the favor.”

John chuckled to himself, sliding a hand over one of Adam's thighs. “You never complained.”

“Are you kidding? You and I must have very different recollections of the situation. I clearly recall yelling things like, 'That fucking hurts, Snake.' You don't remember that?”

Who could say? It was kind of difficult for him to remember anything that clearly at the moment.

He shrugged and Adam let out a frustrated sigh.

Dropping the tube, taking his fingers out, wiping them off on his bare thigh, Adam moved back, sitting over his knees. He was still giving him a look like he thought he was unbelievable, but his ears were a precious shade of pink as he reached out to curl his fingers in the waist of John's underwear. “I should make you wait for it some more,” he said, halting, flicking his eyes up to stare at his face. That was what he said, but the opium must've been handing him some contradicting thoughts. John just lifted his hips off the bed a little, and Adam complied, pulling them down his legs and off. “Fine. Have it your way. I've waited long enough.”

That fake annoyance wasn't able to escape John, even now. He let Adam have as much control as he wanted, knowing that he could CQC the hell out of him if he tried anything funny, just like he said. That probably wasn't going to be necessary, but the thought of it put the memory of their old 'roughhousing' in his head and reminded him of how much he enjoyed it when Adam used his claws.

As he placed his hands on Adam's thighs, Adam took his length into his hand, adding a little more lube to his palm to get it wet. The sensation hit John right in the gut and he moaned, rolling his head back into the pillow. Those thin fingers felt just as good as he remembered, but he was right to call himself 'experienced' now. Whatever sort of _research_ he'd been doing during the years John had missed, it had really paid off. His fingers were still smooth, always protected by those gloves of his. There was something really arousing about the fact that this was one of the few things he'd take them off for; touching him.

“God, Adam, that's good,” he said, his own voice registering distantly like an echo in his head. Adam kept stroking him, rubbing his tightly-closed fist over his cock, occasionally bringing his hand up all the way to the top to rub the flat of his palm over the head, swirling it around in a way that was sure to make him howl. Each stroke of his hand felt so vivid, the sensation sending intense sparks of pleasure throughout his body. He couldn't even imagine what it was going to feel like to be inside of him if it already felt that good. By the time Adam finally took his hand away, John was panting, sweat clinging to his neck and chest. He still couldn't be sure of how long he'd even been doing that for, but it made him wish that he'd never stopped.

Things were about to get a lot wilder, he thought as Adam slid off his shirt. His breath stuck as he watched Adam lift himself up. With a quick wink, Adam swung his leg over him and turned around, straddling him in the opposite direction, his back facing him. Before he could ask what he was doing, Adam grasped his cock and steadied the head at his entrance. With one expert move of his hips, he had John's entire cock buried inside of him. Letting out an inhuman noise that the surrounding rooms were sure to hear, John grabbed him by the hips and held him still. Somewhere in the haze of his dubious consciousness, he could hear Adam laughing.

"I'm glad you're feeling it, Boss." Hearing him call him that now at a time like this really did something to him. It made something raw and animalistic rise up inside of him, made him grasp Adam's hips hard and dig in his nails. "Ngh- That's good. Waiting was worth it."

He'd mentioned that already, and now John was curious. He bit back a groan as Adam raised his hips. "You waited?" he asked.

"I sure did," he replied, coming back down over his cock, letting him watch the way it breached him slowly, all the way down. "It was pretty rough. Masturbated every night."

"Fuck..."

"You know I could've had anyone on that base, but I didn't let anyone touch me," Adam said, looking over his shoulder to toss him a toothy grin that was undermined by the honest fondness in his eyes. Adam could've used that smart tongue of his to convince his way into anyone's bed, and yet he was determined to keep him as his sole quarry. It was a strange honor. John wasn't interested in caging him or keeping him, but knowing that the man he called _Adam_ was the one who was so single-mindedly interested in him was...

It was romantic in his odd sort of way.

He didn't think he even deserved to think about something like romance, but his high brain kindly reminded him of the terrible things Ocelot could do with a pair of revolvers. In that fantastic, euphoric light, they looked like they were two of a kind.

"You really do know how to be loyal after all," John remarked, smoothing his palms over the marks he'd left on Adam's hips. "I can tell you aren't lying. You're so tight."

Adam moaned quietly, tipping his head back as he continued to move. "All I had were my fingers and my thoughts of you. I get the feeling you don't like hearing about your double a lot, but I think you ought to be happy to know that I never gave him a second look. Even during the times when I was unaware of the spell I was under, I could tell that something was amiss. He wasn't _my_ Boss. For reasons I couldn't put my finger on, the man I saw in my daydreams was a different man, even though he has the same face. It wasn't hard to face him because a part of me always knew that he wasn't the one my thoughts were about."

"I don't know how you managed," John said, sympathizing. He was glad to hear more, but he didn't think he would ever be able to completely understand what that experience had been like.

His hips stuttered as he lifted himself up again, supporting himself by placing his hands on John's knees. "Your name was always at the edge of my lips, but I couldn't call him that. It wasn't his name."

Now that was something he could understand. Before him, naked and vulnerable, was the person he called 'Adam'. Ocelot and Shalashaska... Those were different people who just happened to look the same. Only, in this situation, to John and to the 'Big Boss' who had been torn apart and reassembled by the flames of battle, those individuals shared an equal space inside of him. To him, they might as well have been the same.

At the moment, that felt like something important that he should devote more thought to, but he was afraid that the thought would leave him with the high. It was already beginning to slip away from him. Desperate to catch it, he reached out, but his hands were met by the warm skin of Adam's back. It was difficult to remember what he'd even been thinking about anymore. It was all blending together. But Adam was there, at least. He was in the center of his vision, so he was at the center of his remaining thoughts.

"Still feeling good?" Adam asked.

How long had they been doing this? It still felt good in any case, so he gave a lazy nod of his head. A moment later, he realized that Adam couldn't see that, so he said aloud, "Yeah," and promptly sunk his head back into the pillow.

"You're so high, you can barely even move your hips. I accounted for that, though. The only reason I'm able to keep things going for the both of us right now is because I have a stronger tolerance for these kinds of things."

"I can't believe I let you fool me into this," John mumbled. He could've been on top, pounding Adam into the mattress, but here he was, half asleep with Adam shamelessly using his cock. Although he was interested in what they were doing, the high was sapping his energy. Enough time must have passed, and now he was fully feeling its effect.

It was nice.

Anything negative he wanted to think of it flew right out of his head. There wasn't room for anything except the fluffy pink clouds curled around his every synapse and the feeling of Adam on top of him. It was a ridiculous thought, he was certain, but Adam was all that existed, and that was good too.

“How long will this last?” he asked, tracing his fingertips lightly up and down Adam's back.

“It depends,” he said, stilling for a moment, planting himself down flush over his hips. “Could be a few hours or more.”

The sigh he gave turned into a breathless groan as Adam began to move again. “Good,” he said, taking a hold of his hips, weakly guiding him.

Adam looked back at him. “Damn, it made you a lot more agreeable than I expected. What happened to John?”

His humor didn't go without notice, even like this. In fact, he found him funnier than he normally would. “You're surprised? I've got you riding my dick like the fuckin' cowboy you are right now, and you think I wouldn't be agreeable?”

Adam gave him an amused hum. He placed his hands over the ones John had on his hips, holding onto them like his reins, and started moving at the pace John instructed. Or maybe Adam was still the one in control. It was hard to tell. After a few more lifts of his hips, watching his cock sliding into him with lewd, wet sounds, it started to feel like they were melding and moving together, sharing one body.

“I think I'm losing it,” he muttered, his eye losing its focus.

“I'd love to know what sort of things are going on in your head right now. I bet it's a goldmine.”

“Yeah, I bet you'd love to pick me apart, wouldn't you?” Unsettling. He trusted Adam, but he was a frightening man who could dismantle a person with words alone. Adam and Ocelot – they resided in the same body, but John felt the same way about both of them. He couldn't deny that there was something arousing about knowing that he could lay next to the beast with its jaws open and not be devoured by it.

It should've been more unsettling that Adam hadn't responded to that, but John was thankful for the moment of silence. It made him notice that his own breathing had become quicker. It sounded loud in his ears, but not loud enough to distract from the sound of skin on skin, the light smack each time Adam took him back inside of himself. Just the same as the last time he thought about it, John couldn't tell how much time had passed. He wished that he had taken a look at the clock earlier, but the thought hadn't even occurred to him to do so. If they had been going for as long as he thought, then he was impressed with his own stamina, but, now that he was focused on the feeling of the tight heat surrounding his cock, he knew that it was only going to be a matter of time.

“Fuck, Adam.” He willed himself to sit up, dragging Adam with him, keeping him in his lap. “Like this,” he said, raising Adam's hips, making him stay in place. Like that, he spread his thighs out a little wider and grasped him by the waist and started pounding into him the way he wanted. He could tell that Adam had done an excellent job of preparing himself, and whatever that 'experience' of his was, it was definitely paying off now. As he pushed into him, he could feel him tightening up around him like his body was trying to draw his orgasm right out of him.

On one particularly rough thrust, Adam let out a broken shout and doubled over, his thighs quivering.

“Don't tell me you came already,” John chided. He took a firm handful of Adam's ass and listened to him whine as he massaged it.

He moved his hips eagerly. “No, you just... hit your target, you could say.”

Intrigued, John moved his hand around to Adam's front and curled his fingers around his cock and was unsurprised to find it already dripping heavily. The second he started jerking his cock, Adam gave up on his composure and began thrusting up to meet his hand, letting out panting breaths each time John matched his movements, sending his cock into him as deeply as it could go.

John wished that he could see what his face looked like, wondering what expression went with the shameless noises he was making, but it seemed like enough just to see him nearly bent in half over his lap, head bowed. Knowing what kind of guy he was, there was probably a huge grin on his face.

Just a little more, and then he felt Adam coming – was sure of it – felt his insides constricting tightly around him with spasms that felt like they went on forever. Wetness coated his palm as he continued to move his hand over his cock, gliding easily.

He was unable to pull out before his own climax blindsided him. Thrusting back inside one last time, he squeezed Adam's hips hard enough to bruise and came deep inside of him. The feeling that came over him was overwhelming and incredible but made him feel like he was going to pass out. Closing his eye tight, he sunk back and let his hands fall to the bed. A moment later, having recovered, Adam got off of him and began cleaning up and straightening things while he laid there in a daze.

Cracking open his eye, he watched him put his shirt and underwear back on, but he stopped before he considered the rest, glancing up at him.

“This is alright for now, isn't it? I shouldn't leave you like this.”

John mumbled noncommittally. He could do whatever he wanted to. He always did, anyway.

Before Adam could get back on the bed, John held up a hand to make him wait. “Cigar,” he said simply.

“...Yes, Boss.”

Smiling, Adam left the room and returned shortly with his lighter and a cigar between his fingers. Resting at his side, he placed the cigar between his lips for him and gave it a light. It reminded John of the last time he did that for him, when they stood at the crossroads in the waning light of dusk; a memory he kept alive and carried with him as he traversed scorched land and encountered other fractured souls.

It was good having him there.

Should his eye close and he awaken in the morning to find him gone, he knew that a vestige of him would remain. Knowing that it was the same for Adam, for a moment, was enough to make John feel content.

**Author's Note:**

> (And then they go back to the living room after a while and smoke some more and watch Adam's favorite late-night western reruns on John's shitty CRT.)


End file.
